Despite the progress made by the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida), the initiative is “not as far along as it should be” as it faces headwinds in obtaining national cooperation and private-sector uptake.

The multibillion-dollar Pida initiative, which was established in 2012, aims to address Africa’s infrastructure deficit through 51 regional projects and programmes – and over 400 subprojects – spanning transborder energy, transport, communications and water projects throughout Africa.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the African Development Bank and the African Union’s continental infrastructure development blueprint is currently in its implementation phase, as the trio move to “domesticate” the first projects.

However, the complexity of the projects, which crossed several regional boundaries, along with insufficient private-sector uptake and conflicts between regional and national priorities had hampered progress, Nepad transport infrastructure expert Dr John Tambi said last week.

While Pida took an overarching view of the programmes needed to boost the continent as a whole, individual countries, faced with their own national priorities, had failed to wholly support some projects, with the regional benefits not immediately obvious to the territories – or the private sector.

Speaking at the Infrastructure Africa conference, in Sandton, Tambi explained that domesticating the projects was key to the implementation of the interregional projects within territories, and the host countries needed to be encouraged to make it a priority aligned with their national priorities.

“Governments prioritise their own national agendas and do not give enough thought to multinational or joint projects,” added University of Pretoria professor Wiseman Nkuhlu.

Through the assistance of the regional economic communities, the individual countries involved in Pida are responsible for the development and management of the projects, becoming, in effect, the main drivers and “owners” of the projects.

The countries will need to line up the resources and build the capacity essential for preparing, implementing, operating and maintaining projects.

Tambi noted that the attractiveness, or lack thereof, of the projects to the private sector, which were expected to play a critical role in the implementation process, had also emerged as a challenge.

Many of the Pida projects are earmarked as public–private partnerships (PPPs) to enable private-sector support for financing, construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure.

The aggregate price tag of the Pida projects – $360-billion over the next 30 years, with at least $68-billion required by 2020 – is beyond the financing capacities of governments or even donors.

“Attracting private-sector participation through PPPs is, therefore, essential for the delivery of various infrastructure projects envisioned under Pida,” a brief on the Pida programme had previously pointed out.

Whitehouse & Associates partner Duncan Bonnett said the private sector had a role to play in the infrastructure initiatives at a number of levels, but the sector needed to have greater clarity as to what input was required.